Theoretical Concepts Of Strategic Management

Theoretical concepts in the workplace determine the business culture of a company. Managers need to understand adequately the underlying entrepreneurial culture in the organizations where they work. According to Morgan (2012), managerial concepts should be clearly communicated to all employees so as to avoid confusion and facilitate sound decision making. In the job environment, theoretical concepts range from how employees act, work, and dress in respect to the professional ethics of codes for a particular company. Miller and Tsang, (2011) argues that strategic management goes hand in hand with theoretical concepts in the attempt to formulate sound decisions of achieving better performance and a competitive advantage over the rivaling firms. Concepts involve making conscious decisions by the management, and this favors strategic management by helping the responsible company make profits higher than the mean returns for all other enterprises in the sector.

Since its establishment in 1993, Maxis Berhad’s main objective has been creating a competitive environment in the market. Maxis operates as an integrated service provider company in Malaysia and leverages on technology to innovate and offer mobile and wireless broadband services to the customers (Hamid & Atan, 2011). As part of the company’s current employees, Maxis recognizes the value of employees inputs towards achieving its set goals. The company organizes training and development opportunities to the staff to nurture their talents and develop their potential in the workplace. Communication is an essential element of strategic management since it leaves room for increased participation and growth of every person in Maxis.

The purpose of this essay is evaluating the theoretical concepts to strategic management as applied in Maxis Berhad Company. Further, the article provides an examination of how these theoretical concepts influence managerial practices in Maxis concerning effective strategic management approaches of gaining competitive advantage.

To begin with, strategic management in Maxis provides a wider perspective that assists the personnel to understand how their jobs fit into the entire enterprise’s plan. Afifi and Afifi, (2015) argues that theoretical concepts bring in the art of managing the workforce in a manner that maximizes the ability to meet the set goals. The management of Maxis adopts the use of business ethics and policies that aim at creating core competence and formulating strategic decisions that conform to the business objectives (Hamid & Atan, 2011). As observed in management literature, various strategic management theories can be applied and play a relevant impact to improving productivity within an organization. The following is a critical examination and evaluation of the applicability of these methods in Maxis company to facilitate effective strategic management.

According to this theory, the human element plays a significant role in a company when it comes to strategic decision making (Hayes, 2014). The executive management of Maxis recognizes that the human element when it comes to decision making and values the employee’s inputs towards exhibiting business success in the telecom industry. Hayes, (2014) justifies the argument that there is a need for the human resource management department of Maxis acknowledges that subordinate skills and efficiency workforce contributes to gaining a competitive advantage due to the possibility of high-quality mobile and internet services provided. The main competitors being Axiata and DiGi, Maxis capitalizes on the human capital aspect and attribute to firm position itself in the competitive business environment.

In Maxis, the executive invests most capital on their personnel as they perceive the human resources as the greatest asset of the company. The company keeps on organizing for training and development opportunities to enhance the level of their employee retention. Maxis encourages workforce commitment and passion by benchmarking its service performance with those of the competitors in a transitory manner. In Kapferer, (2012) human resource-based theory argues that people remain as the most vital resource that drives the sustainable competitive advantage of an organization. In this regard, Maxis manages the human resources strategically and thereby reaping competitive advantage in the telecommunication industry.

This theory postulates that there is no best approach in itself that managers may adopt to manage the business organization (Al Ariss, Cascio, & Jaap, 2014). Based on the arguments found in the contingency theory, the directors of Maxis design various managerial strategies depending on the particular situation that they are facing. According to Ward and Peppard, (2016), ensuring that Maxis thrives in its venture activities in the telecom sector, the management formulates different human resource policies such as working hours, employee salaries, job description, the roles and responsibilities of each employee in a manner that creates sustainability. For example; under the situation of WiFi installation, the management of Maxis recommends various approaches to complement each other in the whole process. Such approaches taken by Maxis include; subcontracting more than one companies to do the software installation, and forming an undercover group within the firm that will monitor the process. With effective monitoring of Maxis’s broadband and wireless installation procedures, this facilitates effective strategic management and thus enabling the company to gain a competitive advantage over DiGi and the other rivaling corporations.

Miller and tsang, (2011) state that this strategic management model builds on the concept that the primary objective of an organization is maximizing profits and establishing a firm position in the industry over which it can create a competitive edge over the competitors in the business environment. Being a global company, Maxis’s desire of strategic management gets centrally based on the management approaches. To strategically position itself in the telecom sector, Maxis specializes in offering various mobile, the Internet, and broadband services to the customers across different world markets (McMichael & Philip, 2015). Usually, the management of Maxis has been investing some of its resources in carrying out market research in the external market environment. For fairness, the company integrates people with different skills; this makes the researchers form diverse opinions which when unionized contributes to effective strategic management and hence creating a competitive advantage in the sector.

Management theories stress the need for effective strategy formulation to ensure that organizational goals are met. The management of Maxis aims at making the company sustainable. Human behavior based theories seek to motivate employees and cultivate a mutually beneficial relationship in the workplace. Achieving self-fulfillment within the work environment for Maxis, workers get treated as unique resources opposed to how the other resources are handled by the firm (Tynjala, 2008). The ability of Maxis to recognize the views of all employees demonstrates their commitment to creating a sustainable environment for strategic management. The collaborative efforts facilitate the management of Maxis in establishing a holistic work relation which positively contributes to the productivity of Maxis in its telecom service provision. The major contributions that management theories have made to the telecom industry at Maxis company are as discussed below.

First and foremost, theoretical perspectives on strategic management help the executive officers of Maxis to make sound decisions pertaining certain the pressure existing in the telecom sector (Hill, Jones, & Schilling, 2014). With the emergence of new technologies in the telecom industry, this has come about with complexities when it comes to effective strategic management. In the course whereby Maxis company is struggling to achieve its goal of establishing a strong customer base in the global telecom sector, application of management theories provides a guide about how to solve the problem (Hayes, 2014). In particular, the human relations theory guides the management in reducing organizational tensions by reallocating different employees with different skills and abilities to areas where they best suit. The problem-solving role is achieved by the directorate’s ability to recognize the input of employees in formulating ideas necessary to effective strategic management that may lead to competitive advantage.

Theoretical perspectives contribute to the establishment of the necessary managerial skills and helps them understand the flow of power within an organization. For Maxis company, the profit maximization and competence theory is applied by the management in its attempts to establish effective strategic management approaches (Xu & Meyer, 2013). The technical skills of the executive staff at Maxis play the greatest role in manning the human skills of both the supervisors and subordinate officers. The contingency theory necessitates that, at the top management level of Maxis, the conceptual and human skills are highly valuable, but there is a relative necessity for technical abilities so as to achieve sustainability within the telecom sector (Santos, 2012). Technological skills of the manager are always contingent to every skill possessed by a player in the company. 

According to Santos, (2012), theoretical perspectives facilitate strategic planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling within an organization. Most times, the Malaysia telecom sector is usually complex and volatile to the extent that maintaining stability and sustainability in the business climate gets challenging. With the aid of managerial concepts, Maxis takes strategies of preventing the worst scenario fro occurring since with its occurrence; this leads to split the organization and thus poor productivity. However, Xu and meyer, (2013) argue that the application of human resource based theory brings in team building skills that seek to unite, organize, and control the actions of all participants in the Internet and mobile broadband service provision. About the classical organization theory by Henry Fayol, the top management of Maxis sets strategic goals that are complemented by the departmental manager’s abilities to organize, lead, coordinate, and control all the staffing resources of the company towards the right direction.

Theoretical concepts necessitate the importance of specialization and division of labor within Maxis. According to toMcMichael and Philip, (2015), in the contingency theory, no idea, ability, or skill can be useful in itself, but with the integration of numerous perspectives, effective strategic management is encouraged. Fayol’s fourteen principles of administration prove the arguments of contingent theory such that for strategic management to be successful, all these fourteen principles must be present and complement each other. The management of Maxis company uses the strategy of allocating the human resources those roles which they are most qualified. Assigning different people roles which they suit best implies that division of labor cannot work well without the aspect of specialization (Killen, Kam, Drouin, & Petit, 2012). For Maxis, allocation of functions is under the department of human resources, and the human resource-based theory is highly considered while implementing initiatives for stability, remuneration policies, and the spirit of teamwork.

The fact that Maxis has embraced the contribution of theoretical concepts in its strategic management, the company has not optimized its full potential and therefore, still struggles to succeed in the telecom sector. In most times, management theories may not give enough weight to the interests of the employer may not match with the ones of the workforce. Theoretical concepts predict the effect of total engagement of every stakeholder in Maxis. In most circumstances, what the theories predict may not be achievable (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2012). Therefore, the management of Maxis Telecommunication should diversify the strategic management approaches into other perspectives that seek to ensure that the predicted scores are realized. The following gives a series of recommendations that Maxis may adopt to enhance efficient strategic management.

The management of Maxis should take an affirmative action which would offer a chance to correct employment imbalances, injustices, and outright discrimination. The management theories are only based on assumptions which sometimes may be ineffective when it comes to strategic management (Keupp, Palmie, & Gassmann, 2012). Therefore, this calls for the implementation of new strategies for enabling the company to be unified and able to deliver high performance in the telecom sector. In this case, affirmative action may play a significant role in attaining a diversified and integrated workforce.

The management of Maxis should acknowledge the need for interdisciplinary courses of action that expose the labor force from throughout work environment to the nature of threats the company is exposed. Organizing leadership trips will present other strategic management related challenges in the telecom sector to the vulnerability of Maxis’s mobile and internet service provision and impacts well beyond financial considerations (Hayes, 2014). The integrated approach to benchmarking the company’s operations with the other businesses in the sector will make the managers gain a clear understanding of the changing nature of threats in the telecom industry. 

In the discipline of diversity management, the company should diversify awareness of the business threats to the company from its competitors to the employees. Theoretical perspectives only explain the important characters that the workforce should possess while carrying out their mandates but fails by not providing strategies of diversifying awareness to the personnel (Miller & Tsang, 2011). Therefore, the management of Maxis should conduct a thorough market research on the strategies used by the competitors namely DiGi and Axiata so that the employees are given the insight of approaches employed by the rivals. This may assist Maxis to introduce technological and entrepreneurial transformations that facilitate smooth performance and establish a conducive environment for the workers in the workplace so that the enterprise can thrive.

The managers of Maxis should understand that management theoretical concepts get only based on the assumption holding to the rationale that people will apply them in strategic management approaches. Therefore, the managers of Maxis should portray managerial traits that enable them to carry out extra tasks that are meant for the best interest of an organization even though they were not initially included in the business plan. The most strategic priority and competitive goal of Maxis should get based on the social influence tactics in which the practitioners seeks to involve the subordinates (Santos, 2012) voluntarily. Therefore, the company should establish a strategy that necessitates decisive leadership; examples include unity of command and order of power policies. The management of Maxis should acknowledge that both the formal and informal communication channels are helpful in bringing order within an organization.

The theories of strategic management encourage diversity and nondiscrimination in employment and contracting. The workplace concept relates to the personnel’s behavior towards work, work style and atmosphere, and communication in the workplace. If properly implemented, the management theories lead to the provision of high-quality services and increased productivity within an organization. Enhancing service quality within a company requires the management to design effective strategies that are in conformity with the objective of the firm. For ensuring effective strategic management, appreciation of organizational values and potential conflicts underlying business operations must be acknowledged and addressed accordingly. Given the vulnerability and complexity nature of business operations, enterprises should adopt inclusiveness and provide balanced perspectives rather than single views while formulating strategies. Ineffective strategic management results to the formulation of weak policies, and this leads to an overall failure of the entire company’s objectives. Therefore, practitioners should be keen when designing strategic plans to ensure that the plans are in conformity with the available resources within the firm and therefore, avoiding confusion and hence improved productivity.

Afifi, T., & Afifi, W. (2015). Uncertainty, information management, and disclosure decisions: Theories and applications. New York: Routledge.

Al Ariss, A., Cascio, W., & Jaap, P. (2014). Talent management: Current theories and future research directions. Journal of World Business, 173-179.

Hamid, F., & Atan, R. (2011). Corporate social responsibility by the Malaysian telecommunication firms. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 198-208.

Hayes, J. (2014). The theory and practice of change management. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hill, C., Jones, G., & Schilling, M. (2014). Strategic management theory: an integrated approach. Boston: Cengage Learning.

Hitt, M., Ireland, D., & Hoskisson, R. (2012). Strategic management cases: competitiveness and globalization. Boston: Cengage Learning.

Kapferer, J.-N. (2012). The new strategic brand management: Advanced insights and strategic thinking. Kogan: Kogan Page Publishers.

Keupp, M. M., Palmie, M., & Gassmann, O. (2012). The strategic management of innovation: a systematic review and paths for future research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 367-390.

Killen, C., Kam, J., Drouin, N., & Petit, Y. (2012). Advancing project and portfolio management research: applying strategic management theories. International Journal of Project Management, 525-538.

McMichael, & Philip. (2015). World-Systems Analysis, globalization, and incorporated comparison. Journal of World-Systems Research, 668-689.

Miller, K., & Tsang, E. (2011). Testing management theories: Critical realist philosophy and research methods. Strategic Management Journal, 139-158.

Morgan, N. (2012). Marketing and business performance. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 102-119.

Santos, F. M. (2012). A positive theory of social entrepreneurship. Journal of business ethics, 335-351.

Tynjala, P. (2008). Perspectives on learning at the workplace. Educational Research Review, 130-154.

Ward, J., & Peppard, J. (2016). The strategic management of information systems: Building a digital strategy. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.

Xu, D., & Meyer, K. (2013). Linking theory and context: Strategy research in emerging economies after Wright et al. (2005). Journal of Management Studies, 1322-1346.